LETTER XII.
LAPSE OF YEARS.
After a residence of eighteen years amid the fairest rural scenery, we removed to another habitation, somewhat nearer the central part of the city. To leave the trees we had planted, and the flowers whose growth we had watched, was like parting with living friends. Associations also were entwined with the walls of the mansion, with the different apartments, the windows where the rising sun had so long greeted us, and the piazzas where we had sat under the rich, soft moonlight. To sever these ties, was like breaking the flexible tendrils of the vine.
But what I permitted myself for a time to make a trial and a sorrow, gradually faded away. In a few years I passed those premises without a thought of self-appropriation or a thrill of regret. This philosophy was doubtless strengthened by the agency of the railroad in ravaging recesses where Memory might have too fondly lingered.
